She carried live cattle and frozen beef from the United States to England until the advent of the Spanish-American War.

After the war, she was renamed USAT Logan and was fitted for service in the Pacific, supporting U.S. bases in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.

In addition to her regular supply missions, she transported American troops to virtually every conflict in the Pacific for two decades, including the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine Insurrection, the 1911 Revolution in China, and the Siberian Intervention of World War I.

The Atlantic Transport Line commissioned four sisterships to be built by the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

[13] While the Atlantic Transport Line was controlled by American shipping magnate Bernard N. Baker, its operations were run from Britain.

She left London on 23 May 1892 and arrived at her dock on the Hudson River in New York on 4 June, making the crossing in 10 days, 23 hours, and 30 minutes, the fastest recorded by a cargo ship at the time.

[18] In June 1896, Manitoba once again beat her own record for freight-carrying steamers reaching New York from London in 9 Days, 23 hours, and 20 minutes.

At the time, the United States had few overseas possessions, and thus its military had limited ocean-capable sealift to support such an offensive.

[7] Army Colonel Frank J. Hecker approached the Atlantic Transport Line to charter its fleet, and was refused.

He then offered to buy the vessels he sought and a deal was struck, subject to the approval of the Secretary of War Russel Alger.

In addition to Manitoba, the Atlantic Transport Line sold Massachusetts, Mohawk, Mobile, Michigan, Mississippi, and Minnewaska.

Sheridan's & Governor's Troops Pennsylvania Cavalry Battery A Illinois Light Artillery (159 officers and men) Batteries E, H 7th US Artillery (536 officers and men, 343 mules, 240 horses) Having taken Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, the Army had a permanent need for transport to overseas bases.

Manitoba became United States Army Transport Logan, named for Civil War General John A.

[5] Once the Army completed the bulk of the troop movements in the Caribbean at the end of the war, it refit Logan for service in the Pacific.

As equipped for her Pacific service, she could accommodate 1,650 soldiers sleeping in three-tier canvas berths suspended from steel posts.

The War Department instructed General Arthur MacArthur Jr., Military Governor of the Philippines, to hold Logan for possible intervention in China.

In 1905 the ship hosted Secretary of War William Howard Taft and a congressional delegation on a tour of the Philippines, with a side trip to Hong Kong.

[79] Logan continued her regular Pacific crossings until December 1907 when she went to the Risdon Iron Works in San Francisco for an overhaul.

She landed the troops, and their attached horses, mules, armaments and supplies at Qinhuangdao, China in order to protect the railway between Beijing and the coast.

[94] Logan's arrivals from foreign ports were always accompanied by inspections and sometimes quarantine by local health authorities concerned with the spread of communicable diseases.

[95][96] The revolutionary Bolshevik government of Russia made a separate peace with the Central Powers in March 1918, ending Russian participation in World War I.

In July 1918, President Wilson sent U.S. troops to Siberia as part of an Allied Expeditionary Force to safeguard American interests threatened by this change.

A serious fire broke out en route which took seven hours to bring under control, but Logan continued her voyage to Russia.

[105] During this period, Logan sailed a triangular route between San Francisco, Vladivostok, and Manila, with her usual intermediate stops in Hawaii, and Guam.

Logan returned to her San Francisco home port on 14 February 1921 via Gibraltar, New York,[112] Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal.

[113] En route she embarked elements of the 42nd Infantry Regiment in Puerto Rico and transported them to their station in the Canal Zone.

[114] Upon her return to San Francisco, Logan resumed her regular supply runs to Honolulu, Manila, and Guam.

[118] Given the glut of more modern troopships built during World War I, it made little sense for the Army to maintain the thirty-year-old Logan.

In order to offset the cost of repositioning Logan to the east coast, she was chartered to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to move a cargo of California produce to New York.

[123] Naval architect Edes Johnson completed plans for the conversion, and Candler sought bids to execute the work.